Worldwide Hunger: I Can Fuse My Items - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Terrawheeler

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Placing his palm on the ground, Jiang Cheng used his gathering skill.

[Dirt Block +2]

[Dirt Block +2]

[Dirt Block +2]

…

Small blocks of soil were collected and appeared in his Item Box. Then, fine cracks quickly appeared on the already dry and cracked earth under his feet. Not long after, with a poof, a meter-wide and meter-deep pit appeared under his feet.

“Wow…” Yaya cried out in surprise and hurriedly pulled her sister back.

Tong Xiaorou was also surprised, but she guessed that it was another special ability that Jiang Cheng had awakened, so she did not ask questions. She was already happy that Jiang Cheng displayed the skills before them because it meant he trusted them fully.

The ground at the bottom of the one-meter hole in front of Jiang Cheng was still cracked. He frowned slightly. When he was about to widen the area and dig deeper, he suddenly heard something and looked to the right in surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Tong Xiaorou immediately became nervous.

“There are people nearby. There are many of them!” Jiang Cheng said in surprise. “I heard a lot of people talking. Wait a moment, I’ll go up the tree to see what’s going on…” When he was about to climb the tree as he spoke, two huge moving objects suddenly walked out from that direction.

The two huge objects were made of metal. They were three meters tall and were blue in color. In the place where broken items were visible everywhere, especially inside this primitive forest, these two blue-colored colossal objects seem extremely out of place.

“Mecha?!” Jiang Cheng was dumbfounded.

“No. It’s different. A mecha should be much bigger than this. Could it be exoskeleton power armor?” He wasn’t too sure.

At this moment, the two power armors had already discovered them. He immediately stood in front of Tong Xiaorou and Yaya to protect them.

“Evolver?”

In the distance, the two power armors seemed to be stunned for a moment. It was either they had seen the neat hole Jiang Cheng had dug or there was a way to sense the Evolvers, or the pilots were Evolvers.

A voice came through the loudspeakers of one of the power armors, sounding a bit distorted, perhaps on purpose. “Hey there, are you thinking of digging a pit to get water? Don’t waste your energy. You won’t find any water in this area, even if you dig 500 meters down.”

‘Did he say there won’t be any water even after I dig 500 meters down?’ Jiang Cheng frowned and said in disbelief, “Have you already tried digging?”

“Why bother digging? Our detector can easily scan 500 meters underground. Plus, just take a look at how these giant trees have withered.”

The power armor pilot added, “Don’t be so guarded against us. We’re not like those foolish camp settlers. We come from Shelter 17. If you trust us, you can follow us and exchange labor for food and water.”

Just as the power armor pilot mentioned the word “Shelter,” Jiang Cheng felt an unexplainable surge of anger within himself. Though, this emotion quickly dissipated, leaving him wondering if it was a feeling of jealousy or something else.

Jiang Cheng asked cautiously, “You guys have enough food and water, right? There seems to be a lot of people following you.”

“We can produce food and water through elemental synthesis,” replied the power armor pilot in a monotone voice, “but it will consume our reactor’s power, so you’ll have to work to earn your share. We’ll try to slow down as much as possible, but we can’t wait for everyone. If you can keep up, we’ll move together. If not, just follow our Terrawheeler’s trail and catch up gradually.”

With that, the two power armors continued to open up a path in front of them, using their massive steel swords to slice through any vines blocking their path. In no time, they had cleared a 20-meter-wide passage and were picking up speed.

Watching the two power armors leave, Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but feel apprehensive. ‘Shelter,’ he thought to himself, ‘why does that word make me feel uneasy?’ Despite his unease, he couldn’t determine if it was his own impression or if it was a remnant feeling from the original body.

Tong Xiaorou and Yaya could hear voices behind them, and it was getting noisy. The former became nervous and said, “Jiang Cheng…”

It had been a long time since Jiang Cheng and the girls had seen a large number of people. In the wilderness, they would usually only come across a few people at a time, and it was rare to have more than a dozen people together. This was because there wasn’t enough food for everyone.

Jiang Cheng thought for a moment. He then filled the hole with rotten leaves before saying, “Let’s assess the situation first.”

Finally, after half a minute, a massive moving object appeared in their sight.

The behemoth was ten meters tall, fifteen meters wide, and thirty meters long. There was a 400-millimeter main cannon on the top and three 100-millimeter sub-cannons around it. It looked like a super tank. However, unlike a tank, it didn’t rely on tracks to mobile but mechanical legs. There were sixteen thick mechanical legs on each side, a total of thirty-two, supporting the huge vessel to move slowly.

‘I guess that’s the Terrawheeler,’ Jiang Cheng thought to himself.

Behind the huge Terrawheeler, there was a large number of people.

Tong Xiaorou and Yaya were both shocked by what they saw. Jiang Cheng shared their astonishment and commented, “A shelter with this level of advanced technology… It seems like some catastrophic event may have occurred in this world…”

Jiang Cheng wondered silently if the drought they were facing was connected to the disaster, but he had no way of knowing for sure, since there was no relevant record in the memories of the previous owner of his body.

The Terrawheeler before them did not have the slightest sound of an engine. There was only the rumbling sound of mechanical legs landing on the ground as it slowly moved forward at the speed of an ordinary person.

As the Terrawheeler passed by, thousands of raggedly dressed people quickly followed behind. Some of them noticed Jiang Cheng and the girls, but it was just a brief glance, and they didn’t pay much attention to them.Despite being emaciated and malnourished, these folks still retained some sense of humanity, unlike the previous group that Jiang Cheng encountered who had a greedy and inhumane look in their eyes.

When this group of people passed by, more people slowly came from the back. These were all old people, women, children. There were also young and strong people who walked slowly just to accompany their friends and relatives.

In total, there were probably four to five thousand people.

“Let’s follow behind and see what happens,” Jiang Cheng said after a moment of hesitation. He did not want to blindly trust the pilots from Shelter 17.

However, if those people really had a way to produce water, he might be able to exchange some for it. In addition, he had to figure out what kind of labor those people needed ordinary people to do.

“I’ll follow your lead.” Tong Xiaorou had no objections, and Yaya had no objections either.

Jiang Cheng immediately picked up Yaya and followed, and Tong Xiaorou followed closely behind.

“Dad, look. It’s that guy.” Suddenly, a voice came from nearby.

Jiang Cheng turned his head and saw the three people who had traded water for the remains of the giant wolf’s corpse yesterday. The tall and thin man, a skinny woman, and a healthy boy around thirteen or fourteen.

Perhaps it was because they had a successful transaction before, the tall and thin man nodded at Jiang Cheng in a friendly manner but did not say anything.

Jiang Cheng returned the greeting with a nod as well and continued on his way. He did not approach the family of three either. He even maintained a distance of about thirty meters from other people.

In fact, everyone was on guard against each other. There were only a thousand people in the group behind them, but there were three to four hundred small groups. The largest group only had four to five people, and most of them were lone wolves.

Luckily, the two power armors and Terrawheeler in front of them made the road behind them much easier to walk on without worrying about stepping into traps.